9/19: Personalizing the Internet

Today in class we learned about personalizing the internet. This is a method of finding information you want, and knowing how to search specific information. We learned about the difference between directories and search engines, each of which have advantages and disadvantages. Directories have fewer pages than search engines, and are mostly easier for students to use when looking up information. Directories will retrieve information that is relevant and the search does not require exact key words. A search engine can retrieve LOTS of pages to one single search, however the relevancy fluctuates depending on the quality of your method of search on the topic. With my google account I was able to add "Google Alerts" to my e-mail account. Google Alerts are a way of searching a topic and having those searches sent directly to your e-mail. This way, if a new article, etc. is added to the internet under your special search topic, these articles will be sent directly to your e-mail daily, weekly, or monthly depending on your personal preference. With my google account I also added the "Google Reader" feature which allows me to read and organize specific websites I like, which I have subscribed to through the RSS feeds and share these items with other users. For example I subscribed to all of my CEP 416 classmates' blogs and I have shared some of those blogs publicly with an aggregator on our course wiki. Personalizing the internet is an interesting tool I will be able to use with my future students on research projects and finding information online.